First American in Space went in a rocket designed from a handcrafted model

[GON]

At the Alamogordo Space Center with the grandsons today.

Came across unexpected fact. The Mercury Redstone Rocket that Alan Shepard JR went into space on, was built from a handcrafted model by Michael and David Wells, and Charles Magellan.

I found this fascinating, that we think today that building things from scratch takes a huge amount of resources. The PRC didn’t supply anything for this model, and we don’t need a thing for PRC or any other nation to build awesome things in the USA.

UPDATE- the scale model was hand built, not the actual model. Significant error on my part, sorry for the erroneous post.

Stay young my friends..

 

[mrsilv04]

It seems to me that what was handcrafted was the 1:10 scale model that was on display in the museum.

 

[GON]

It seems to me that what was handcrafted was the 1:10 scale model that was on display in the museum.

If that is the case, and likely is, huge error on my part. Thanks for the correction.

Also sad to learn the truth, I was super excited to erroneously think the actual model was built by a handful of Americans.

 

[duck__dodgers]

for any history buffs....Project Orion which was, in the 50s/60s, the expectation of where space travel would be in the 21st century. (8 min long). along with video #2, Werner Von Braun explaining, in a Disney video, spaceflight to kids in 1955.

 

[shortyb]

Also sad to learn the truth, I was super excited to erroneously think the actual model was built by a handful of Americans.

It wasn't? Thought Texas and New Mexico were about as "Merican as you can get. I think the real thing that took Shepard up was all US built by a bunch of red/white/blue blooded craftsmen too.

 

[Number_35]

From this old space nerd's memory banks:

Al Shepard's suborbital MR-3 (MR = Mercury-Redstone) Freedom 7 flight was followed by Gus Grissom's similar MR-4 Liberty Bell 7 flight on July 21, 1961.

The Redstone booster was pretty much directly evolved from Werner Von Braun's V2 rocket of WW2.

It (the Redstone) produced only 78,000 lbs of thrust, not enough to put the Mercury capsule into orbit.

After a long series of delays, the much more powerful (283,000 lbs thrust?) but flakey Atlas booster was deemed ready, and on February 20, 1962, launched John Glenn's MA-6 flight. Glenn's Mercury capsule, dubbed Friendship 7, did three orbits.

Three more Mercury flights, all orbital, followed.

I have a McDonnell-Douglas pin, from the Museum of Flight in Seattle, showing a Mercury capsule in orbit, with the words "First Free Man In Orbit" - a tacit admission that the Soviets had beaten the U.S. to it.

Superior computing power would allow the U.S. to catch up with, and surpass, the Soviet Union, as evidenced by orbital rendezvous missions during Project Gemini.